Book Title: Comparative and Critical Study of Mantrashastra
Author(s): Mohanlal Bhagwandas Jhaveri, K V Abhayankar
Publisher: Sarabhai Manilal Nawab
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Jain Mantravada and Caityavasis
MA
ANTRAS and Vidyas* are said to have covered the whole of the tenth Purva entitled Vidyanuprava da+ of the fourteen Purvas forming the major portion of the Jain Canonical literature. These Pūrvas were very huge in volume and encyclopaedic in character. They are all lost now. According to the Jain tradition the whole of the Jain Canonical literature was comprised in twelve Angasx and the whole Purva literature was comprised in the twelth Anga. Only the first eleven Angas are now available as compiled by Sri Devardhi Gani Kṣamāśramana 980 or 993 years after the Nirvāņa of Lord Mahāvíra i. e. 454 or 467 A. D.
SRI PARSVANATHA AND PURVA LITERATURE.
'Pūrva' means 'ancient' and the literature going under that name must therefore be considered to be older than the rest. The
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*For all practical purposes Mantras and Vidyas are the same. A technical distinction is however drawn between them that in the former the presiding deity is a male and in the latter a female or that Sadhna is strictly ceremonious in the latter but not so in the former. See Visoşăvasyaka Bhāṣya and Avaśyaka Niryukti V. 931
+ The commentary on Samvàyànga Adh. XIV explains Vidyanupravāda thus: fr farfarar amirà afgangur That is, Vidyanupravāda wherein are des cribed many kinds of miracles caused by Vidyas (magic). The contents also of all the fourteen Purvas are there described. See also commentary on Nandisutra, Sūtra 56. According to the Digambaras the 10th Purva contained 500 Mahavidyas (great Vidyas) named Rohini and others, and 700 Alpavidyās (small Vidyas) such as Angusthaprasena (questioning through the thumb) and others, and eight Mahānimittas or great omens or modes of divination. (See Introduction to Satkhandagama Vol. II p. 52 and Mallisenasūri's Vidyanus'äsana Ch. III vv. 18-79.)
x See Samavāyānga Adh I for enumeration of the twelve Angas.
+ Winternitz says the twelth Anga contained only the remanants of the fourteen Purvas collected together at the Council of Pataliputra about 170 years after Nirvana of śri Mahavira. (P. 432 History of Indian Literature Vol. II). The contents described in commentaries on Samavāyānga and Nandisutra however tell a different story.
